Day 7 | Monday, May 27

Today we had a fun learning experience at the California Academy of Sciences museum in San Francisco. Aunt Carole planned our route so we would get to go over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge in the morning. 

A Foucault pendulum clock, named after French physicist Leon Foucault, helps demonstrate the rotation of  the earth while simultaneously keeping time.

Inside the museum's planetarium we watched an interesting show called Earthquakes: Evidence of a Restless Planet. It explained about the earth's tectonic plates and how earthquakes occur, before showing us some of the larger earthquakes that have taken place in the past 30 days.

The outside of the rainforest exhibit 

The top of the museum is called the "Living Roof". It was designed to help combat something known as "urban heat island effect", which causes cities to be 6-10 degrees hotter than rural areas. Having a roof covered with native plants eliminates the heat absorbing black pavement that would usually make up a building's roof. Because of their living roof the museum is usually 10 degrees cooler inside compared to a normal building. The skylights also allow the museum to utilize natural lighting when available and solar panels provide up to 10% of the museum's needed electricity. 

The Rainforests of the World exhibit was very neat! Ramps spiraled up the 90 foot tall glass dome, leading you through the forest floor, understory, canopy, and emergent layers. Live birds and butterflies flew through the exhibit, fish swam in the "river", and various reptiles and amphibians were housed in terrariums. 

The different rainforest levels we traveled through.

Yes, Michaela characteristically took many notes.

A Doris Longwing Butterfly

Looking out from the top of the rainforest exhibit.

A Giant Owl Butterfly

The Steinhart Aquarium was simply stuffed with every kind of fish and sea creature imaginable.

An electric eel.

The moon jellyfish were beautiful!

For lunch we ate at the Academy Cafe and had Cod 'n' Chips. Doesn't that striped straw in the glass pop bottle just make you happy?

The Tusher African Hall had many unique mammals we had never seen before as well as the classic lions and cheetahs. 

Two gerenuks (Litocranius walleri)

We took this picture especially for you Mason, because it reminded us of Racing Stripes.

Most people don't think of penguins living in Africa, but Black-Footed Penguins (Spheniscus demersus) actually do!

Giant tortoises from the Galapagos Island 

Look Haley, a giant tortoise!

A baby giraffe

The swamp exhibit where the museum's famous albino alligator, Claude, is housed.

Claude:

We think this Diamondback Rattlesnake was giving us the evil eye because he knew we'd eaten his cousin last night...

Museum scientists were reassembling an Orca Whale skeleton. 

Part of the earthquake exhibit included a "shake house" where you could experience what a real earth quake might feel like! Water sloshed in the fish bowl, books rattled on the shelves, dishes crashed in the cupboard, and paintings swung from the walls as the whole house rattled us inside!

Pictures from the San Franciscan earthquakes of 1906 and 1989.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex at the museum entrance. 

On the way home from the museum Aunt Carole stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge vista point so we could get out and take a few pictures. We decided to walk on the bridge and ended up walking from one side to the opposite tower and back. It was pretty foggy, cold, and windy, but we were happy we took the time to do it! 

For dinner we ate pizza at an Italian restaurant called Melo's. While waiting for our food Uncle Pooge taught us how to build a pump and a duck call from a straw!

When we got home we went in through the actual front door for the first time and used Aunt Carole's unique doorbell! You crank the handle on the side of the box which makes two old fashioned telephone bells ring inside the house. Aunt Carole even has the original telephone they came off of!

 -Michaela and Emily